


Among Them

by Virodeil



Series: Caught Is Caught Is Cuddled [26]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - what if, Canon Divergence - Thor (2011), Family History, Gen, Intersex Jotunn (Marvel), Jotunn Culture, Mama laufey, POV Laufey (Marvel), Past Violence, Single-Gendered Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28452891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virodeil/pseuds/Virodeil
Summary: Laufey notices something odd – or rather, someone odd – with the band of Asgardian young warriors that have just trespassed into their realm and have the temerity to demand things of them, and reacts accordingly.
Relationships: Laufey (Marvel) & Loki (Marvel), Laufey (Marvel) & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: Caught Is Caught Is Cuddled [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1089204
Comments: 16
Kudos: 125





	Among Them

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is, at long last: a story from Laufey’s POV, though it’s shorter and simpler – perhaps flatter – than you might wish for. And, just a forewarning: There are lots of little things that you might be baffled by, that are nonetheless unavoidable given whose POV it is and the wealth of unspoken, unexplained history behind it. But I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway. Please feel free to comment and/or complain and/or ask/suggest things. ☺ - Rey
> 
> Glossary for Ýmska:  
> elða: seiðr, magic (as an inborn sense of a jötun instead of a skill)  
> milaða: jötun  
> milaðen: jötnar  
> Ýmirheim: Jötunheim
> 
> Started on: 24th December 2020 at 02:10 PM  
> Finished on: 31st December 2020 at 08:05 PM

The Bifrost’s appearance, sound and touch are painfully familiar to all milaðen who have been old enough during the devastation of Ýmirheim to see and hear _and feel_ the horrors it could wreak on anything and everything.

And now, nearly one millennium and three centuries after the war, the accursed beam of destruction once more lances down from the sky.

It disgorges six Asgardians, this time, not far enough from the courtyard of the temple where the Commemmoration Day for those lost in the war is held today: a woman trying too hard to be a man, a young man with Bor’s eyes, a very fat older man who has the looks of a doting parent instead of a warrior, a dark-skinned man too silent for Asgard’s usual warrior type, another young man with the looks of a woman-player….

_And_ a _milaða_ youth, with _horribly familiar_ green eyes, just a few shades darker than their own when in their warm-weather form like the youth is in now.

But this must be the so-called “Loki Odinson” that rumours have been mentioning, often in relation to “Thor Odinson” the Crown Prince of Asgard, the young man with Bor’s eyes – the kidnapper-and-murderer’s eyes – who is even now stalking up to the dais and demanding how milaðen -- ` _Who?!_ ` – got into Asgard.

` _Why would Asgard’s second prince feel so familiar? We have never even met!_ `

Laufey, seated in a chair they had fashioned themself moments before the cocksure band of Asgardians arrived here at the courtyard of the ruined temple, purses their lips and finds their eyes flicker _yet again_ to the milaða youth standing among the Asgardians, even as they offer that “the House of Odin” is full of traitors – and _indeed_ , it is; there is no need to think about that, as Bor kidnapped and forcefully wedded Bestla their elder womb-sibling millennia ago _and_ betrayed Bergelmir their queen mother to the latter’s death two millennia after, and as even Voðen – their sibling-child – left the child’s home and rightful station here to go rule a people who had kidnapped and forcefully wedded the child’s own previously espoused mother to the then King of Asgard, a people who had _also_ forcefully wedded the said child to their childhood friend whose realm had just been conquered.

_And then_ , in the wake of the war that at last broke with Asgard almost a millennium and three centuries ago, ignited by Bor and ground to an uneasy halt by Voðen, the Anchor was thieved, _and_ the twins – Laufey’s twins prematurely born, the fruit of their own womb before it was wrecked by Týr’s enchanted mace _by purpose_ shortly before the war was lost, their newborn firstborn- _and_ -lastborn, the only legitimate heirs to Ýmirheim – were lost, one to death and the other to kidnapping.

And Thor, Voðen’s kin-child, is shaping up to become like Bor instead of their sire or dam, with that bloodlust in his eyes, already so alike Bor’s.

The milaða youth, meanwhile….

Laufey’s heart clenches in bemused trepidation, in _recognition_ , when, upon their taunting return to Thor, however truthful their words are, the milaða youth seeks to urge the Crown Prince to turn back and go away. The action, even the gestures and expression of the youth, reminds them of _themself_ when they were but a child, seeking to prevent their thrice-elder sibling from upsetting their queen-mother with some rash or reckless action or another.

And then one of the war orphans they have been with on this Commemmoration Day taunts Thor, however childishly and lightly, just as the quarter-ás _turns back_ as the strangely familiar milaða youth has urged.

Predictably, Thor raises his weapon and lets it fly towards the child taunting him.

The milaða youth accompanying him looks highly alarmed and dismayed, on this turn of the unpleasant event.

Strangely, Laufey feels _the same_ , and they would wager that their expression would match the youth’s, at present.

They do not think, afterwards. They just _react_.

And what they do first is to secure the weapon before it can impact the foolish – now terrified – taunter, before they order half of the royal guards to escort the war orphans who were participating on the commemmoration ceremony away to a safer place.

And then, after ordering the other half of the royal guards to detain most of the Asgardians, they approach the milaða youth themself, highly trepidatiously, _just like_ how the youth looks and seems to feel.

“Who are you?” they ask, ignoring how the youth is bristling with elða now, seeming ready to attack them like a wounded, cornered animal would do.

“Loki Odinson,” the youth says curtly, tensely.

And the proclamation rings as a lie in Laufey’s soul.

“You do not look nor feel like Voðen,” they point out, instead of confronting the matter dead-on. ` _Why are you lying, child? Why do you feel like **my own self**?_`

The youth – no, _the child_ – looks stricken on that statement.

And then, lacking any coherent return it seems, the said child retaliates by tossing a spell at them.

And, for the first time in their brief, startling acquaintanceship, as they capture the spell in an elða sphere of their own making, Laufey gets a direct measure of the child’s escence.

One that resonates _all too synchronously_ with theirs.

The child’s breath hitches. Most likely, they have just realised that they have attacked _a monarch_ in the latter’s own realm.

Laufey’s own breath hitches, but for a different reason this time.

The child is _all too familiar_ in all their senses, in their mind, in their soul.

They scoop the child up into their arms, _by instinct_. And there, as the small limbs flail about and the child yowls in surprise and fright, they are painfully reminded of the moment each of their twins was so prematurely and forcefully delivered out of their wrecked womb.

And this close, they can somehow detect a foreign layer wrapped round the child’s presence, with the flavour of Voðen’s elða.

An _identity cloaker_.

They swipe the layer aside, angrily, but as carefully as they can.

And _there_ , the soul, fully uncloaked.

Loptr.

There is no doubt about it, after half a term bearing and interacting closely with the child. There is no more obfuscation, redirection of attention, sense muddying.

And the child cannot deny themself, _their dam_ , their bond, when the dam – _the mother_ – lays an elða-coated hand on their chest and proclaims like that day nearly a millennium and three centuries ago when they were born, “Loptr Laufey-childe.”

Maybe, maybe, maybe, just _maybe_ , Thor could be thought of more kindly, now, after returning Loptr here, albeit by chance.

But for now, all thoughts of other people and other things are shunned, however briefly, as the pleasantly surprised – nay, pleasantly _shocked_ – mother cradles their newly found child close in their arms and bathe the latter in their presence, their elða, like when the latter was but one of two babies growing in their womb.

Loptr _Laufey-childe_.

Yes, for once Asgar did something right and proper.


End file.
